Let’s Take a Break

I reserve the right to, from time to time, write about something other than Israel’s perpetual wars (forced on the Jewish state by her neighbors, of course). My trips to Israel can give some different perspectives.

Also, I am frankly tired of some observers that only give us dark, scary forecasts.

You know me, I never worry that Israel will disappear. Scripture tells me she won’t. Others though traffic in fear and dread and skirt the issue of whether “Israel will survive or not.”

Not for me.

Today I want to take a real departure from our regular topics and present something I’ve wanted to do for some time. I’m preparing a longer version of this article for my Patreon page, so be looking for it.

The topic today is, Visiting Israel on a Budget!

Of course, some are more adventurous than others, but I’m here to tell you, you can go to Israel solo and save money. I am not discounting tours—no pun intended—because they are fantastic. It gives you a great overview and if you are blessed to go with a teaching pastor, a deluxe teaching pastor like Chris Quintana, then you will never forget it.

But if tour money intimidates you, let me explain some things to you. I’ve been to Israel 10 times, almost always on my own. Rent a car, book my hotels as I go, and do my own customized trip. You can also see some places not normally included on tours, such as Independence Hall in Tel Aviv, or the Haganah Museum (military museum) across the street.

It’s not really that hard, and unless there’s a war on—cough, cough—you’re as safe as you are at home.

One of my favorite things is to try as many different hotels as I can. I tend to stay away from international chain hotels (we can do that at home) and look instead for historical places or culturally interesting. Now, I am presenting this as a budget trip, but that doesn’t mean you eat bologna sandwiches all week. In fact, you can have a lot of fun splurging here and there based on money you’re saving elsewhere.

For example, let’s start with accommodations. I’ve stayed in most of the nicest hotels in Israel, and I highly HIGHLY recommend you save your pennies and stay at least one night at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. You will never regret it. It’s very expensive ($500 or more per night), but absolutely worth it. See if you can get an “Old City” view, which means your room will face east and the beautiful Old City is so close you feel like you can touch it. The breakfast is extraordinary; the room is so big you’ll think you’re in a warehouse. The architecture is Old World, in fact so Old World it will remind you of a Babylonian city.

Others that are wonderful are the American Colony Hotel, just north of the Old City. Here though you will be in Palestinian neighborhoods, but you’re very close to such sites as Gordon’s Calvary, etc. The building originally belonged to an Arab sheik, but was taken over by American missionaries in the 19^th century. Such luminaries as Winston Churchill, Marc Chagall, and Mark Twain have stayed there. Like at the King David, I stayed three nights and enjoyed it immensely. A great pool and a gathering place frequented by international media types. Never know who you’ll run into!

The Mt. Zion Hotel is also close by and the amazing feature is, it overlooks the “fabled” Valley of Gehenna, spoken of in the Bible. A few yards away is the traditional site of Judas’s hanging.

But let me spring something on you here. On my last trip, exactly a year ago, I found the courage within myself to stay in a…pod! I had read about them and decided I wanted to try it, if I could stand it, so that I could report back to my friends.

It was a fantastic experience. I found one in Tel Aviv, right across the street from the beach and two doors down from the luxurious David Intercontinental Hotel and the Dan Panorama. I figured if I couldn’t stand living in a commune for a night, I could switch! I didn’t want to. What you get is a large, box-shaped sleeping quarters, with a locking door. Each unit has air-conditioning and lighting. Also charging stations. Three feet from mine was the private shower. Listen to me: if I could do it, you can do it. I’m a private person but I never felt uncomfortable. It was a great experience. The selling point? I stayed for $40 per night! Amazing.

I wanted to be able to stay I’ve stayed everywhere in Israel!

Before I forget, at the time I got my plane ticket through Expedia, I only paid about $1,000—the cheapest ticket I’d had in 25 years. So, add that expense to your hotel stuff and you can get there and have lodgings for about $1,000 if you play it right. I rented a car for a couple hundred dollars and was able to eat economically. Remember, almost all hotels have a free breakfast.

Souvenirs are cheap, too. You can fill a suitcase with t-shirts for not a lot.

As I said, not everyone is adventurous, but don’t worry about your safety. I drove all over the country. I simply avoid Palestinian areas and the rest is a picnic. Dead Sea, the Galilee, Jaffa, Jerusalem…all within easy driving range. Use the GPS or rely on old-fashioned printed maps…the highway signs in Israel are good and easy to understand. All signs in the country are printed in Hebrew, English, and Arabic.

I would recommend noting the phone number and address of some official channels, such as the U.S. Embassy, but I’ve never used such. I want to keep reiterating the point that Israel is a very safe country to visit.

So think about it: for around half what a tour would cost, you could go solo to the Land of Israel. Something to think about.

One last thing for now. If you want to know my no. 1 site to visit in Israel, it is the Temple Mount. It’s the spiritual center of the universe and where the Jewish Temples once stood. Very few people will be able to say they’ve been there, this side of heaven, but when I go, I spend hours up there. It’s usually not hard to get up there. You just go early, then get in line by the security checkpoint to the right of the Western Wall. You then head up the ramp and before you know it, you’re walking where Jesus and the apostles walked. Where David bought the threshing floor. Where Abraham was prepared to sacrifice Isaac. And don’t forget to look east, to the Mount of Olives. I always imagine Jesus coming through the clouds and standing on the Mount of Olives, then walking through the Kidron Valley, to enter the Temple Mount and take His rightful place.

Well, I hope this has been beneficial to you. If you’d like to know more, as I said, I’ll be posting something soon on my site, with more detail.

Happy travels!

 

 

 

Don’t worry

As we watch the Hamas War unfold, we have analyzed (as best we can 8,000 miles away) and discussed, analyzed some more. If we’re honest, we don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m as bad as anyone of being contradictory: We don’t know what will happen tomorrow (the Bible tells us), but…but…”What I think will happen in Gaza is…”

Haha, you get the idea.

It’s tempting in this critical moment to “wish” our hoped-for outcome. That is, Israel will finish the job, even in the face of withering pressure from the corrupt and morally bankrupt international community. Even now, Israeli war cabinet members are toying with the idea of joining Trojan Horse opposition leaders to undermine the war effort. The ICC and UN have bared their fangs at the Jewish state.

So, who knows how it will all come out? One day I am sure of this, the next day of that.

I want instead to change things up this week and go at this from a different angle, one that I think gives full respect to God’s Word. There, we are told that in the end, Israel will be standing at the end of history. The details of that, especially in our immediate future, we can’t know.

But I want to tell you a story. In that story, I hope you will feel less anxiety about Israel’s position. It runs parallel to the great Old Testament accounts of God’s provision for the Jewish people. I always call this story a modern Bible story.

We begin in 1976, but my very minor bit in it came along many years later. I’m talking about the famous hostage rescue at Entebbe in 1976. In late June, a small team of PLO and German terrorists hijacked an Air France jet flying from Tel Aviv to Paris. After a refueling stop in Athens, the terrorists stood up and took control of the plane. Of the over 300 hostages, more than 100 were Jewish.

While hijackings were popular in the 1970s, the new element in this terrorist act was that the plane was re-routed to Africa, Uganda to be exact. That was obviously to thwart any rescue attempt—it was 2,500 miles from Israel.

I won’t recount the whole thing here, but Israel publicly negotiated with the terrorists. At the same time they were mounting a hostage rescue effort. In a move that stunned the world, after getting an extension on the terrorist deadline, four planes loaded with Israeli commandos landed at midnight at the Entebbe Airport. In less than 10 minutes, the terrorists were eliminated and the hostages were loaded onto the planes. Israel had evaded both Egyptian and Saudi radar; they were home before anyone knew what had happened. Leaving at 4 p.m. from Sharm el Sheik, and returning to Israel the next afternoon, Israel’s counter-terrorism unit electrified the world.

I’m telling you this story to illustrate that just when Israel seems pinned with its back to the wall and the killing blow is about to be released, the Jewish state emerges in miraculous ways.

Twenty years ago, I was able to visit with two of the IDF troops that went to Entebbe. One was a member of the legendary counter-terrorism unit, Sayeret Matkal. The other a member of the Golani Brigade. The former was the first one in the door at the terminal building where the hostages were kept, and the latter was one of the few participants that was wounded. Initially, Israeli planners calculated they would take 20 percent casualties. Of the 200 troops that went, only the Golani fellow—Surin Hersko—and Jonathan Netanyahu (oldest brother of Bibi) fell. Surin was paralyzed from the neck down by a gunshot. Yoni Netanyahu was killed.

I visited these men separately, in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Surin has a full life and a thriving business. His lovely home in the Tel Aviv suburbs is impressive. It was here I began to understand the spirit of the Israelis. I asked Surin why he volunteered for the Entebbe mission. He looked at me and said, “Because the people were in danger.” That’s it. He also said he would do it again if need be.

Since then, I have thought a lot about what a higher level of human he is, especially compared with the bums and, to quote Michael Savage, the vermin in media, politics and diplomacy that work 24/7 to undermine and hurt Israel. Here was a man that sacrificed so much because he values human life.

The other gentleman told a spellbinding story of entering the terminal building. The IDF had good intelligence but of course could not know everything they were running toward.

“I was in the door first. We had to have the element of surprise and we had it. The terrorists didn’t know what was happening until we were upon them.” He was carrying his weapon, a megaphone (to shout at the hostages that the IDF was there) and several pounds of explosives, in case they had to blow the door open. It was open.

“A German terrorist was lying on the floor and saw me; he fired first. I felt bullets and glass fly past my neck and head, but I wasn’t hit. I eliminated him.” Another member of the Unit entered right behind him. They each turned to the right and to the left. At the same time they were alerting the stunned hostages, they were firing their weapons. In a darkened room, the Israelis fired 60 rounds in 15 seconds. Within minutes, they were loading hostages onto waiting planes.

It was surreal talking to men of such stature. Even though both were “ordinary” Israelis. The member of the Unit said that a few years later, one of the rescued hostages was interviewed on television. She gushed that her rescuer was “like Clint Eastwood!” My new friend laughed; he is average build and height and if you passed him on the street, you’d have no idea what he did. In the chaos of those moments entering the Entebbe terminal, he saw Yoni Netanyahu fell. “He had ordered us to continue on with the mission if anyone was injured; it was hostages first.”

This is the spirit of Israel. Profound physical courage in the face of impossible odds.

Except nothing is impossible with God. Especially when His people are in danger.

I say all this to say, No matter what situation Israel is in right now, God will see them through. Almost as a gift to us, he allows us to watch His glory pass by as he fights for His people and shatters their enemies. This has been happening for 4,000 years.

He’s not going to stop now.

Am Yisrael Chai!

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